Lacombe residents likely to reject settlement on waste transfer issue

A group of citizens suing to stop the plans for a waste transfer station in Lacombe is expected to reject a settlement offer from IESI Corp. that includes putting the station on a nearby tract but farther from the main highway into Lacombe. The board of the Concerned Citizens of Lacombe met Thursday night and voted to reject the offer, Rick Franzo, the group's president, said in an email.

Members of the group met with IESI representatives Wednesday for about 2 1/2 hours to discuss the proposed settlement, said Jeff Schoen, the attorney for IESI.

The board has called an emergency meeting for Thursday night to let the full membership vote on the settlement offer, Franzo said. It will take place at 6:30 p.m. at the John Davis Recreation Center in Lacombe.

The conversation included IESI's plans to seek a zoning change on a parcel adjacent to the one where the company has been planning to build the transfer station. Schoen said he has submitted a request to the parish to change the zoning on the new parcel from A-1, or one home per five acres, to SWM-1, or solid waste management district.

The matter is expected to come before the St. Tammany Parish Zoning Commission at its July 3 meeting.

The new parcel is 26 acres abutting Interstate 12 and is northwest of the tract to which the group objects, he said. Schoen noted that the new parcel is farther off of Louisiana 434, in an effort to appease residents who believe the proposed location of the transfer station is too close to the main highway into Lacombe.

Schoen said he heard Friday from Rick Richter, the group's attorney, that the board had voted to reject the settlement offer and would object to IESI's request for the zoning change on the adjacent land. Further, the board will not support a joint motion with IESI and the parish to push back the deadline for briefs in the case to the Louisiana Supreme Court.

Lastly, the group plans to ask that the parish's Board of Zoning Adjustments reschedule a hearing that was postponed in March seeking a revocation of the building permit for the original site.

The Concerned Citizens had appealed to the board to overturn a decision by the parish's permits director that has allowed work to proceed at the site on Louisiana 434, just south of Interstate 12.

Schoen said he thought the settlement discussion was productive but that obviously the issues on both sides had not yet been resolved.

He said he could not detail what the settlement offer included at this time, though he said that during the discussion there had been "a general consensus about the possibility of a waste transfer station in the general vicinity."

Schoen said IESI is contemplating a response to the board's vote.

The group contends that IESI, which has the permit to build and operate the transfer station, did not begin work in earnest at the site, per the requirements of the permit, and that the permit likely then expired because work had not commenced within a 180-day timeframe.

Kenneth Wortmann, the parish's director of the Department of Permits & Regulatory, has said IESI did indeed begin work and that the work satisfied the requirements to keep the permit active.

The group sued the parish in March 2011 in an effort to determine whether the parish had the right to allow IESI to build and operate the transfer station.

Judge Martin Coady of the 22nd Judicial District Court ruled in August that the parish had erred in issuing the permits to do so. The Parish Council appealed the ruling, saying it could have a detrimental effect on the parish's entire zoning code.

However, the Louisiana Supreme Court directed Coady in December to grant a suspensive appeal in the case, giving IESI the right to continue work at the site while the lawsuit remains on appeal. At the time he rendered his decision to invalidate the permits, Coady had ordered IESI to stop all work.